Neither could he curb the small flicker of warmth in his chest.
Was this what Clio would do for him?
Punish him, torture him and yet push him toward being a better man than he had been this past decade?
That he had resisted her, that he hadn’t given in to his need and taken what she had so freely offered, that he had protected her, even from himself, he would count as a win; he would count it as a little bit of honor still left in him.
CHAPTER NINE
WHEN CLIO OPENED her eyes the next morning, there was a hammer and a pointy needle inside her skull, and someone had pulled the silky curtains aside to let in reams of sunlight to punish her with.
Or at least, that’s how it felt.
Clutching her head, she turned to her side and groaned. Tears prickled behind her eyes at the dull, pounding ache through the top of her head.
Her mouth was dry, and her throat parched. She tried opening her eyes again and was about to sit up when a strong arm pulled her up with infinite gentleness.
A whimper erupted from her throat as a blend of lime and aftershave and masculine musk teased her nostrils. It was like a slap to her senses, at once decadent and eviscerating…
Just like the man was.
She stiffened in his hold but he didn’t relent.
Of all the unholy, damnedest things in the world, why did Stefan have to be up before her on the first morning of their ill-conceived marriage? Why couldn’t she have started it by setting an unaffected tone, one that she wanted?
“Buon giorno, cara.”
The honeyed words boomeranged against her skull as if he had shouted them.
Another moan escaped her and a smile curved that sinful mouth.
Thick wet hair fell onto his forehead. His freshly shaved jaw glinted, and he smelled clean and nice and as sinful as the red-velvet cake she had devoured last night.
Bastardo, she mouthed the word that she had heard Alessandra use.
His gorgeous green eyes glittered with humor, his smile so beautiful that her chest hurt.
“Go away,” she said, hiding her face in the pillow, superaware of her messy hair, parched mouth and her old Columbia T-shirt that constituted her nightwear.
“Take this,” he said, opening his palm to a white pill—her migraine medication—and a glass of water in the other hand.
Too far gone with the ache in her head to even offer a token protest, Clio grabbed the glass and ingested the pill. She lay back down gingerly, any sudden movement piercing her head.
His handsome face filling her vision, Stefan straightened the cotton duvet around her and tucked it to her chin. Tapped her nose with his finger, and pushed her hair back from her temples. “Sleep, cara,” he whispered.
Sleep and exhaustion hit her in waves and Clio decided the concern she had heard in his voice had to be a side effect of her medication.
The next morning, Stefan awoke in his bed with the smell of coffee teasing him awake. It took him a few seconds to figure out why he had a feeling that he had missed something. He looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand, which said eight in the morning. The red digits burned his brain.
He hadn’t checked on Clio in a few hours.
Pushing back the covers, he leaped from the bed and walked through the corridor to her bedroom.
He came to a halt as he found it empty with the bed neatly made up.
The scent of gardenias clung to the air and before he knew it, his lungs were filled with it. Running a hand through his hair, he leaned against the entrance, a wisp of something keeping him in the room.
A hairbrush lay on the dresser opposite the bed, and a pair of jeans and a silk top neatly folded on the bed.
A strange quiver gripped his abdomen to see the bed empty of her tall, athletic form after seeing her there all day yesterday. She had refused to even eat anything, only asking for water again and again. Silently bearing it as if it were her punishment. Looking at him with eyes wide with shock as he checked on her every couple of hours.
Why are you checking on me? she had asked once, her eyes drugged with sleep.
Did she think him so heartless that she was shocked at such a small act of concern? Had he given her a reason to think differently? Why did he care?
Irritated at how scattered his thoughts were, he walked back to the kitchen, following the smell of coffee.
He came to an abrupt halt at the unusual scene in front of him.
Clio stood at the counter, her back to him, unpacking breakfast, he assumed, from the mouthwatering smell.
She was dressed in dark blue jeans that hugged her long legs from ankles to her trim waist and a sleeveless white silk shirt that showed off her tanned arms.
Her hair fell straight to her waist, a river of ambers and reds, glinting where sunlight struck it.
He watched in rising fascination as she slid the lid off one plastic box, grabbed a fork and popped a piece into her mouth.
Pancakes and maple syrup, mouthwatering bacon and coffee—his favorite meal from back when they had been at university. They had all teased him because he would eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Her face turned toward the French doors, she closed her eyes and let out a long moan as she chewed. A drop of syrup stuck to the side of her mouth and she licked it off with another satisfied little groan. Color suffused her cheeks as she repeated the ritual.
Bemused and turned on, Stefan watched as the pleasure she wrought from the little ritual rendered him stupefied.
The next time she picked up another piece with her fork, it took everything he possessed to not join her and direct her fork to his mouth. Or not to taste the syrup on her lips.
“The suite comes with a butler on call twenty-four hours, Clio,” he said, pushing off the wall and walking into the kitchen. “You don’t have to arrange our meals, bella.”
Her fork clanged on the counter, the tinkering sound of it filling the silence.
She turned and watched him with those big eyes, color climbing up her neck.
The silk blouse was so sheer that he could see the outline of her bra, and the dip of her waist. It was so strange how so many small things about her he observed, his fascination arising from the most mundane of moments.
Like the delicate turn of her wrist and the blue veins there, like the crooked slant of her nose, the way she grabbed her hair away from her face with both hands and roughly pulled it back thrusting her breasts up…
Dannazione, the woman was lethal in how quickly she made him think of sex and skin.
Shrugging, she stepped back as he advanced. “I actually wanted to cook breakfast as a thank-you,” she muttered. “But this state-of-the-art kitchen doesn’t even have sugar and milk. So I walked a bit and grabbed breakfast.”
“A thank-you? Why?”
Her expression was straightforward, her shrug a bit too casual. “For looking after me yesterday.”
“Do they always last that long?” he said, thinking of how she had held her head. For a couple of hours, he hadn’t left her side, a tenderness he had forgotten he had possessed keeping him there instead of ordering the staff to help.
It had been a long time since he had done something so simple and satisfying as looking after someone. He used to do it all the time.
Another of his innate traits that he had buried deep.
“Kind of, yeah.” Another shrug. “This whole week has been very stressful and then I didn’t eat anything the whole day of the wedding and then guzzled down that champagne, so it was kind of like inviting the demons to play inside my skull.”
“Why was it stressful? Didn’t the wedding planner take care of everything?” he said, covering the distance between them.
The closer he moved to her, the heavier his blood flew in his veins. Just the scent of her soap and skin…it set up an instant reaction in him.
Blinking rapidly, she clutched the counter behind her. Which stiffened her posture and thrust her small breasts up.
“You’re joking, right?”
“Why were you stressed, bella?”
“Because I was getting married under the strangest conditions that I ever dreamed of and the beast I was marrying thought I had trapped him into it,” she said, thunder filling her voice.
He grinned. “The beast?”
“Yes. Anyway, I know that our contract doesn’t stipulate looking after each other in case of migraines brought on by stupid decisions and showing concern toward each other, so I’m really grateful to you for—”
“Shut up, Clio,” he said, staggered at how easily she had him swinging from mood to mood, like a damn monkey being operated by a switch.
Just fifteen minutes into the day, he had felt a strange warmth in his gut at the way she occupied every inch of the suite that had always been free of feminine intrusion, had given him unrivaled morning wood just by standing in his kitchen and now he was annoyed as hell.
At her and at himself.
All he wanted to do right now was tear up the bloody contract, pick her up, carry her to his bedroom, and peel that denim off of her slowly, inch by inch until he could touch her all over.
“Is the migraine gone now?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said primly.
Was it his arrogance that rankled at being dismissed so well? Or was it the allure of a woman who didn’t immediately fall for him?
Chewing on that errant thought, he picked up one of the coffee cups and took a sip.
The bitter brew on his tongue instantly reminded him of his home, a home he hadn’t visited in so long. “You found a Sicilian blend in Manhattan?” he said, surprised.
A flush claimed her cheeks at his pointed question. “I know a Sicilian coffee stand. I go there every once in a while.”